


Silence Where There Should Be Sound

by HarlequinSmiles



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Youngblood Chronicles, Fall Out Boy Lyrics, I don't even ship peterick but my friend does so here you go friend, I just wanted some Miss Missing You stuff so that's what I did, M/M, Minor Peterick, there I was watching the YBC and then I was like 'hey let's ruin this for myself', this can be peterick or just platonic it's up to you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-17 01:51:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5849299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarlequinSmiles/pseuds/HarlequinSmiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pete is so tired of running.<br/>He's so, so tired.<br/>He just wants Patrick back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silence Where There Should Be Sound

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is just a fun YBC thing- a bit of an adaption of Miss Missing You.  
> Yeah, I'm shit at this shit, but I tried, so hey, what can you do. I tried, but feel free to leave any kind of CC or feedback. Or just tell me how shit it is because I'm chill with that too
> 
> Also hi george I finally finished this thing

_don’t panic_

_no not yet_

_i know i’m the one_

_you want to forget_

Pete is so tired of running.

He’s so tired of the burning heat and the itching, crawling dust. He’s so tired of the stench of blood and sweat, staining the air like spilt ink over ruined music sheets.

He’s so tired of the sun beating down of his grubby, scratched skin. He’s tired of the endless stretch of road and dirt stretched out before him, like some shitty mockery of a running track that he could never hope to complete.

He just wants to Patrick to stop.

His head is spinning, the burn in his calves and thighs muffled to a dull agony as he staggers forward, briefcase in one hand, weapon in the other. What can he even call it? Is it some sort of spear? A weird kind of machete on a stick?

Either way, he really doesn’t want to have to use it. Not on Patrick.

Not on… what’s left of Patrick, anyway. That snarling, blood-thirsty, yellow-eyed fucker staggering after him isn’t his best friend. It’s not the same person he used to drag out long afternoons next to throwing song lyrics back and forth like insults, or spend entire nights leaning up against when the world became too dark cold for him to even think about sleeping.

Patrick was the one that stayed up all night with him, or waited until Pete had finally settled down against his shoulder before closing his eyes himself. Patrick was the one who smiled and joked and cared so much that Pete was surprised that the size of his heart hadn’t caused his chest to explode.

This _thing_ isn’t Patrick.

Or at least, that’s what Pete keeps telling himself, because the alternative might just rip him apart from the inside out.

_cue all the love_

_to leave my heart_

_it’s time for me to fall apart_

He stumbles to a halt, pressing the heels of his hands into his knees as he drags in great greedy breaths, the dust at his feet swirling into lazy ripples. He’s been running for too long, now, and he knows that he can’t keep going forever. No one can, of course, but his legs are shaking and he’s almost 95% that the only thing that’s keeping him moving is the adrenaline trickling through his veins. And that shit’s almost ran out too.

He’s gotta do something, gotta get rid of Patrick, before he collapses completely. Because then Patrick will kill him, take the suitcase… and shit, probably burn the world to a crisp.

Pete doesn’t much like this responsibility.

He takes a final breath before hearing a scuffle of dust behind him. Turns to see the bloody snarl and yellow eyes. For a moment, neither Patrick nor Pete move; Patrick’s eyes are full of nothing but murderous hatred- a writhing pool of animalism that Pete can’t take his own eyes from. He’s not moving, staring down the man he… shit, the man he fucking loves, and he’s trying to get through to him.

In the nicest possible way, Patrick looks like utter shit.

 _‘Patrick?’_ he wants to say, _‘Patrick, are you in there? Patrick, please, stop this.’_

He doesn’t say it, though, and he just turns around and starts running.

There’s a snarl as Patrick starts to chase after him again.

_now you’re gone_

_but I’ll be okay_

_your hot whiskey eyes_

_have fanned the flames_

Patrick’s limping.

Pete hasn’t noticed that before, but he’s definitely injured. Not enough to stop him, of course, but he’s not moving as fast as he was.

And even though half of Pete is thankful for those precious extra seconds of time Patrick’s injury has offered him, it still hurts. He doesn’t want to have to be fucking _happy_ that his best friend has fallen to the ground and is struggling to stand back up. He wants to run back, help him up, make some lame joke and let Patrick lean of his shoulder as they make their way to some form of safety.

Of course, if he actually does that now, Patrick’s ‘thank you’ will probably to gouge his face open, and that kinda sucks. Pete’s never thought about it before, but caring the hell about someone who wants to tear you apart really is far too ironic to even be anything other than painful.

And _bam_ , now he’s thinking about the music again. The same fucking tune that’s been whistling around and around his head all day, refusing to shut up for one goddam second. And even though he used to freaking love that song, it’s really not helping the current situation in any way. All the song is doing is reminding him how great things once were, and how nothing could ever be better again.

Not really motivation material, in any case. If anything, it’s just making him feel even worse.

The machete/spear drags in the dust as he stumbles forward, the growl of the motorbikes creeping closer and morphing into a howl. He doesn’t know who the riders were- whether they're nothing more than travellers or more of Courtney Love’s cultists- but he doesn’t want to find out.

There’s two of them, he realises, as he throws a quick glance over his shoulder, riding alongside each other with about a five metre gap between them, their helmets tinted black. They might be about to run him down for all he knows, and he’s pretty sure he won’t be able to stop them. He turns back to face the stretch as Patrick let out a yell, the sound of a body hitting the ground smothered in the roar of motorbike engines as they scream past, throwing handfuls of dust and the stench of fuel into his face. He loses his footing for a moment, his shoes slipping, but gets up and keeps running.

Pete doesn’t look round to see if Patrick was still after him. He doesn’t need to.

_maybe I’ll burn a little brighter tonight_

_let the fire breathe me back to life_

The area he runs through is littered with empty corpses of old vehicles- the windows smashed and the tires slit, paint peeling like old scabs. It’s a car graveyard; loose nails and cast-aside screws lie among the brush, tearing at his jeans as he staggers through them. It hurts, it hurts a lot, but he’s put up with more than this in the last week so he doesn’t bother stopping.

As he fumbles between the hollow metal shells, he notices the skeletal shape of a girl in one of the backseats. She’s bird-like and dressed in rags, a doll clutched between her narrow hands. In any other situation, Pete could probably think up some deep metaphor to describe it and use in another song, but right now, all he can think was how perverted the image of a small girl is surrounded by dead metal.

He ducks behind one of them, slides behind another, before clambering through a broken window and into the seat of one of the cars. He ducks down beneath the seats as Patrick’s shape passes by, his heart stuttering inside his chest.

Patrick’s skin is almost grey, his hair greasy and clothes torn. He’s almost unrecognisable from the real Patrick: the Patrick who would never go out without some hat on, who was always self-conscious and awkward in public and generally way too nice for his own good.

And Pete has always thought that Patrick was pretty attractive; even back when he’d been kinda chubby with a bald spot hidden beneath his hats, but Pete had still continued to think so after he’d lost the weight and grown more hair and become more ‘conventionally good-looking’. Maybe it’s just been because Patrick always had the same heart, the same voice, he was still the same person, but it’s also had something to do with the way he looked at him, the way he smiles at him when he spoke, as if Pete was the only person in the world, the only one that was ever really important and the only one Patrick ever wanted to listen to.

The song is still bouncing around Pete’s head, the words almost like knives as they repeat over and over in Patrick’s voice. He can barely stand it: the song about the future he’ll never have, the person who’ll never love him, the song that is all but tearing him apart on account of how goddam fitting it is to this moment.

And maybe it sounds stupid, but Pete can’t help but pray that Patrick could hear it too. Because maybe, if he could, Patrick would really see Pete for Pete, rather than some faceless enemy. Maybe, if he could, this wouldn’t have to end in blood and tears after all.

Pete isn’t the naïve sort, but he can’t help but hope.

_baby, you were my picket fence_

_i miss missing you now and then_

_c_ _hlorine kissed summer skin_

_i miss missing you now and then_

But Patrick can only hear noise.

Blinding, white noise, that invades every orifice in his body, sweeping him away into a tide of anger and hatred and utter, burning insanity. This noise crawls over him like ants- biting, stinging, tugging at the blood that clings to his skin. It’s like oil; fills his nose and mouth, leaks into his lungs and leaves him drowning.

It’s like he’s trapped inside the cage of his own body, his movements stiff and uncoordinated, the pain he knows should leave him in complete agony feels dull and smothered, suppressed beneath layers of fury and hatred.

Patrick’s drowning inside his own body.

The noise he can hear is all but the embodiment of agony- writhing through his veins and making the world spin. Nothing’s in focus, nothing’s important.

Except that briefcase.

He _needs_ that briefcase. And he doesn’t care who he’s got to hurt and kill and destroy in order to get it.

He doesn’t know why he does, but he knows. It’s the same way as he knows to breathe. He follows the girl’s finger and meets eyes with the man crouched inside one of the car’s footwells. He looks exhausted- clothes torn and dirty, his face smudged with dirt, sweat and blood, and he also looks familiar, but Patrick doesn’t really care.

The man looks pale, almost sickly, with dark bruises beneath his eyes from sleepless nights. Patrick can’t be certain, though, because his world isn’t exactly in full colour. Everything’s tinted yellow- a sickly, mustard yellow- that twists the sky into a shade of chartreuse, a perverse yellow-green that stains the horizon.

It’s because his eyes are yellow, he knows that much.

Pete staggers towards the vehicle as the man meets his eyes, throwing the briefcase and weapon out of the car window before following them himself, stumbling slightly. Patrick snarls, anger firing through his veins, and begins to run after him.

It’s relentless, this animalistic fury, but it fuels him as well as adrenaline- he’s barely tired in fact, his body feels completely detached from his consciousness, almost working completely apart from him. It’s almost as if someone else- something else- is controlling him, making him want to hurt, to kill.

But the man… the man is the one target he can’t ignore. He’s almost the quiet amidst the noise, the point that Patrick finds himself locking onto, like a fish on a line, reeling himself in, closer and closer and closer. There’s part of him, somewhere, that’s screaming- telling him to stop, to think, to not hurt this one man, that this one person is more important to Patrick than anyone else in the entire world.

This part of him, however, is quashed beneath the noise.

Patrick can’t hear anything else.

_sometimes before it gets better_

_the darkness gets bigger_

_the person that you’d take a bullet for is the one behind the trigger_

_oh- we’re fading fast_

_i miss missing you now and then_

Pete wonders if the people who live in this godforsaken town know how fucked up they are.

At first, when he’d seen the skeletal shape of houses in the distance, Pete had thought that he’d finally found salvation. That he could stop Patrick, find a phone, call Andy and sort… well, _something_ out.

Andy had to be okay. He hadn’t seen him leave the warehouse, but he hadn’t really had a chance to, not with Patrick on his heels. Maybe Andy’s tailing them both right now, or burning Courtney Love’s warehouse to the ground. Something.

But, when he gets closer, Pete realises that there is something very, very off with the town. It isn’t really anything to do with the ramshackle motor homes and the dead plants and animals that litter the ground. It's the people themselves- the wild, crazed eyes and vicious snarls.

Pete has to take a second look to work out what he can see- past a boy with a chain around his neck and fastened to a fence, a paintbrush in one hand and white paint splattered over his shirt, his neck, covering half his face. It reminds Pete of the way the blood had hit his own face when he slashed open the girl’s throat with the hook. Blood everything- in his hair, on his hands, running down his neck. The girl’s screams. The blood on his lips- salty and sharp- the smell of it, engulfing his senses in scarlet.

Pete can’t get rid of all that blood, can’t wipe it away.

The man is red-faced and screaming himself hoarse, palms rubbed raw from yanking at the boy on the other end of the chain. He pulls again and the boy yells out, the paintbrush almost falling from his stained fingers.

Pete runs straight past them, but they don’t even glance his way.

_making eyes at this husk around my heart_

_i see through you when we’re sitting in the dark_

The song’s still in his head though, even as he dives past an old woman and into her motor home, Patrick hot on his heels. The woman doesn’t look at him either- she’s cackling, playing with whatever sharp object is in her hands like it’s nothing more than a kid's toy.

The song’s whispering in Patrick’s voice- all broken memories and abandoned dreams, some bittersweet concoction that Pete himself knows far too well. Hell; he fucking wrote that song, but until recently, he'd still never have thought the lyrics that he used to be so goddam proud of would be the one coming back to bite him in the ass. He stumbles inside, looking around wildly for something, _anything_ he can use. There's got to be something in here- a phone, a radio (because now he’s certain that music has something to do with whatever’s made Patrick into… whatever he is) but there’s nothing. There’s nothing there, and Pete wants to scream. Nothing at all.

He tries to turn, but now Patrick’s on top of him, the air knocked straight out of his lungs as he writhes, tries to move, his feet slipping in the dirt, his arm stretched out to keep the briefcase as far away from Patrick as possible. All he can hear are Patrick’s snarls, low and animalistic and hungry, the glint of yellow as sharp as the machete in his hand and completely focused on the briefcase. He twists, tries to push Patrick away. He can’t.

The machete’s still in his hand. He could use it- one quick thrust and it’ll all be over. He’s caught Patrick in the perfect position; half-trapped between his own body and the briefcase, writhing madly, and Pete could stop this madness once and for all. But he’s not going to. Of course he’s not.

Because even through this, all he can think of is the way Patrick’s voice sounds- soft and sweet, like the colours of dawn in the middle of winter. And all he can think of is the way Patrick smiles at him, like he’s more important than anyone else in the room, like whatever bullshit comes out of his mouth is pure golden inspiration. All he can think of is all the times he’s called him at three o’clock in the morning with nothing but rot in his heart and black in his thoughts, and the way that Patrick held him together with nothing more than gentle promises and caring smiles.

Pete can’t kill Patrick, because then he’ll really be killing part of himself, too.

So instead he throws him to the ground, the briefcase hitting the back of Patrick’s head with a heavy thud, and then he starts running again.

_so give me your filth_

_make it rough_

_l_ _et me let me trash your love_

Patrick hardly notices the pain in his head. He barely feels the scream of his muscles or the hollow throb of his heart.

He can’t feel a thing.

He’s inside another of the motor homes now- this one sparsely furnished and filled with smoke. The woman wearing the gasmask fidgets on the couch, tossing the television remote from one hand to the other and back again.

Patrick can feel himself lunging, his hands wrapping around the briefcase- _finally! Finally! FINALLY!_ \- before it’s gone again, the man ripping it from his grasp as he falls. The world’s so fragmented, time moving past in snapshots of colour and movement: Patrick standing, the man falling, the briefcase gone and Patrick can’t see it-

He’s snarling, his lips curling up and drool dripping from his mouth as he lunges, driving his hook down towards the man’s face. But the man’s grabbed his arm- he can’t move it, he can’t slice it down, he can’t _hurt,_ he can’t _kill-_ and he lets out a furious scream as he’s pushed backwards.

The man twists, his dark eyes filled with fear and wild desperation as he trembles beneath Patrick’s attacks. They’re caught in a standstill- Patrick’s hook just _can’t_ reach the man’s throat, but the man can’t force him away either. Their eyes meet again, dark brown against bright yellow. Complete opposites, and Patrick can’t help but think that those eyes look familiar, so very familiar. They’re filled with fear, but also complete and utter grief. And… is the man trying to say something?

His lips are moving, but his words are so quiet that Patrick can barely hear them over the noise inside his head. _“Patrick…”_ he seems to be saying, his voice as cracked and bloody as his lips. _“'Trick, please… come back to me…”_

Patrick growls. The words, the voice, those eyes… they’re so familiar. And they… they hurt, somehow. These eyes, the way that they’re almost pleading with him, almost begging Patrick to hear him.

The man’s desperate and completely broken, Patrick can see it in his eyes. And for some reason this almost hurts him. He almost wants to help him rather than rip him apart. What a curious sensation. Then the man turns, pushes him away, and Patrick hits the ground. And the instant that he does, the noise floods back over him and Patrick just wants to kill again.

The man lets out a sob as he runs away, throwing himself out of the smoke-filled room and into the hot, dry air. He drops the briefcase and Patrick’s attention shrinks into pinpoint focus upon it. He needs that briefcase. He _needs_ that briefcase.

All Patrick can hear is noise, and he lets him carry him away, back into the ocean of animal noise and desperate brutality.

_i will sing to you every day_

_if it will take away the pain_

_oh and i’ve heard you got it, got it so bad_

_'cause i am the best you’ll never have_

Pete’s soaked to the skin; the hot dust clings to his clothes even more than it did earlier now that he’s been doused in water. The kid in the swimming pool must’ve been freezing, but he seemed happy enough when Pete ran past- tossing around the inflatable crocodile, throwing water everywhere, and even Patrick looked put off when he was hit in the face with a spray of cold water.

Pete had taken his chance to grab a few seconds’ break hiding behind the pool, but when he’d been spotted he was off again. But he didn’t run fast enough to avoid the wave of pool water that had drenched him from head to toe, but the heart-stopping chill had really been a brief reprieve from the afternoon heat, a shock to his weary muscles that was almost energising.

Now, however, the day's starting to surrender into night; the sun dipping tentatively behind the horizon, the sky stained with yellows and tangerines and blushing pinks. Normally, Pete would find this beautiful, and maybe he could even manage to paint up a few lyrics inspired by it.

But it’s beginning to get cold now, and the sweat covering his skin is starting to cool.

He’s tired; more tired than he’s ever been in his life.

More tired than he’d been moving from motel room to motel room, sleeping in the back of a musty van with band equipment and three other guys.

More tired than he’d been in the carpark of Best Buy, with a handful of Ativan in his stomach.

More tired than he’d been at the police station, with Andy at his side, Patrick in a cell and Joe in a morgue.

He’s so, so tired.

He just wants it all to stop.

He just wants his Patrick back.

_baby, you were my picket fence_

_i miss missing you now and then_

_c_ _hlorine kissed summer skin_

_i miss missing you now and then_

Patrick’s eyes are filled with fire; the pupils completely blown out, leaving a thin ring of gold around the edges. His face is contorted into a snarl, eyes unblinking and completely focused on the blood-soaked briefcase- oh, god, Patrick’s blood- in Pete’s hands, pretty much ignoring the machete levelled at his chest.

It’s more of an empty threat than anything, because Pete really, really doesn’t want to use it.

They’re surrounded by motor homes, trapped almost in a clearing, and Pete’s thinking _that this is it, one way or another, this is where it’s going to end._

He’s got to end this, right here, right now.

Patrick takes another step towards, a growl ripping from the same lips that Pete used to think about, all those days and nights and years ago.

He’s still got the song in his head, but if he’s not mistaken, it’s drawing to an end.

Pete licks his lips. He can still taste the blood on them.

“Patrick,” he says. “I don’t want to hurt you. This isn’t you. This is all Courtney Love, the bitch from the warehouse. Remember her, Patrick? She's the one that started all this, and now she’s got in your head and fucked shit up in there. But you need to fight it. You can do that- I know you can.”

There’s no reply, only the flash of white teeth in the fading light. He lifts the machete up a little higher, and Patrick’s eyes flicker to it and then up to Pete’s face.

“’Trick?” He raises his voice a little louder. “It’s me, Pete, remember?” There’s nothing- no recognition, but Pete’s not about to give up just yet. “’Patrick, seriously, you gotta snap out of this. You just gotta. This isn’t you.”

Patrick growls, and Pete wonders if it’s even possible to talk an animal back into being human. He takes another step, his hands shaking, and Patrick does too. He’s going to cry if he’s not careful.

“Patrick...” His voice cracks. “I need you, okay? I-I need you more than anyone else. More than I’ve ever needed Joe or Andy or anyone ever.” His throat’s tight. “’Trick, I need you. You and me, we’re family, you know that? I love you, I _fucking love you_ , and I’m pretty sure that I should’ve told you that before all this shit went down.”

Patrick pauses for a moment, just one, his eyes completely focused on Pete’s. It’s almost as if that yellow is peeling him apart: tugging away the skin and muscle until he’s completely bare, all his secrets laid out for show. And Pete’s just that tiniest, tiniest bit hopeful that maybe this has worked after all.

Then Patrick growls, utter animal ferocity in his eyes, and Pete’s heart splinters.

He doesn’t want to have to do this, and, if anything, this is probably going to kill him too.

But he can’t let Courtney Love get that briefcase- and he’s either going to ensure that she never will or he’s going to die trying.

The song in his head is almost over, anyway.

_sometimes, before it gets better_

_the darkness gets bigger_

_the person that you’d take a bullet for is behind the trigger_

_oh- we’re fading fast_

_i miss missing you now and then_

Patrick lands a punch first- a fist straight into the man’s stomach and is rewarded with a sharp gasp of pain, the clatter of the machete flying from his grasp.

This is it. Here and now. This is where it’s going to end.

Patrick pushes and the man falls, throwing up a cloud of dust when he lands. Patrick lunges, lands on top of him, the man’s hot breath in his face. Before he has chance to drive the hook into his face, the man wraps both his hands around his hook arm and forces him onto his back.

They’re rolling, snatching, grappling at each other, spitting saliva and blood into each other’s faces. There’s nothing graceful about the way they’re fighting- it’s all growls and frantic clutches at survival, desperate twists and yells as each of them fight tooth and nail to win, to live.

This is the only way Patrick can imagine killing his final enemy.

He gnashes his teeth, but the man’s still forcing his hook to the side. He twists again, trying to free his arm, but he can’t. The man’s eyes are locked with his. He brings up his hand, presses it into the cut in the man’s neck, fingers digging into the healing skin there.

The man shrieks, lurches backwards, and Patrick’s free again.

His hook is _free_ , that’s the important thing.

Then the man’s off him and for a moment Patrick’s relieved, glad that he can finally breathe again, but then he sees him staggering back towards him with the machete in his hand. The man’s face crumples like crushed paper. He sees him lean forward. Patrick feels the blade pierce his skin, slice through his flesh, cut deep into the vital organs he has left.

His vision flickers, from yellow the grey to full colour before back to yellow again. He can see the smears of grime on the man’s face- _his face is so familiar_ \- the horror and desperation in his eyes.

For a heartbeat, he hears the words _‘I’m so sorry, Patrick’_ on the man’s tongue.

For a fragment of an instant, he thinks he can hear music in the distant. It’s familiar music, in a voice he knows so well.

He knows this man, he does.

He loves this man, he knows that too, and the answer’s just there, just out of his reach.

But then it’s all whisked away from him again- the colour, the music- and he screams.

_oh- now and then_

Then man lets out a grunt when Patrick forces him down into the dirt, the crowd around them chanting obscenely, hungrily, lapping at the scent of adrenaline in the air. They make a miss-matched crowd; all sweating, all grinning the same manic grin, but he can’t imagine them fitting in anywhere other than in their own segregated community.

Patrick pays them no attention- he’s on top of the man now, hits him square in the face when he tries to move. The man scrabbles at his shoulder, trying to push him away, but there’s no strength left in his arms.

He’s weak, helpless, and all Patrick wants to do is tear him apart.

 _“’Trick…”_ The man’s voice is hollow and as cracked as his lips. Patrick’s not expecting something like this, and he pauses, hook raised impatiently. The man licks his lips. _“It’s okay, ‘Trick,”_ he whispers.

Patrick roars and drives the hook down into the Pete Wentz’s face, right between those beautiful eyes.

_Finally._

_now and then_

He stops screaming after the third time Patrick drives his hook into his skull, but ironically, that’s exactly when Patrick starts to howl, too, every time he brings it down.

Because he’s finally beginning to see the colour’s again- he’s beginning to see the scarlet coating his hook, the blood _everywhere._

It’s on his hand, his face, his clothes, staining the ground. His screams are ragged and torn. Even the sky’s scarlet, as if the horizon’s been taken to with a carving knife.

Patrick’s almost surprised at the mess he’s made.

_now and then_

The music’s quiet, but he can hear it all the same, just as he can hear the thunder of his heartbeat in his own ears.

And he can see Pete on the ground, the blood that surrounds him, like some morbid mockery of an angel’s halo.

Pete’s dead.

_Pete. Is. Dead._

Joe’s gone, too; Patrick remembers killing him, choking the life out of those pale blue eyes as the bloodied fingers tapped weakly at his wrists. The sharp smell of the hospital, of antiseptic and plastic.

And Andy- his throat slit open, the gargle as he sank to his knees and left there to die, left to choke on his own blood on the floor of Courtney Love’s office. There’d been blood everywhere: on his clothes, on the floor, scarlet hiding the tattoos covering almost every inch of his skin.

The taste of it’s heavy on his tongue, but it’s only when he feels it seeping between his lips that he realises that, after all of this, he’s dead, too.

He can’t help but feel relieved.

_baby, you were my picket fence_

He’s tired now- sinking to the floor, the sharp pain in his stomach slowly fading into a dull throb. He’s falling asleep and that’s all he wants, hours and days and weeks’ of sleep. The crowd are starting to trickle away, and the silence their absence leaves is of the consistency of tar and just as black. He can’t remember what he should do now. He can’t decide what he should think. Not thinking is easier anyway. His head’s full of cotton wool and it’s just easier to not think and just sleep instead.

Pete’s dead. Pete’s dead. Pete was all he had left, even when his limbs weren’t his own and the world was bathed in yellow, but Pete’s dead now anyway. Pete and Joe and Andy and now Patrick’s going to be joining them.

He remembers the smoke, the taste of it seeping through the bag on his head and making his head spin. He remembers Pete’s hands on his shoulders- he doesn’t know how he knows it was Pete, but he does, he always has- and the sweet relief as he was pushed out of the van and into the cold night air.

He remembers the smell of blood as he was strapped down onto the table He remembers the white hot pain and the snip snip snip of the scissors and scalpels. The scream as his hand was separated from his arm, the bitter laugh that clawed at his ears.

He can feel it now- the icy grip of the handcuffs around his wrist, the small smile they threw him as he made his way out into the street. The briefcase in his hand, Pete pulling him in for a hug before he left. The way he whispered in Patrick’s ears that he’ll _‘see him later, okay?’_ and that he didn’t ‘ _know what I’ll do without you, so make sure I don’t need to find out.’_

Pete had been worried, even when Patrick had promised to make it back. He’d almost begged Patrick to let him take it, but no, of course not, Patrick was going to take the risk. Pete couldn’t do that. And Patrick had hugged him tighter, breathed in that familiar safe scent and whispered “we’re both going to be fine. Us guys against the world, just like old times, you know? And us two: the apocalypse could start and we’ll still have each other’s back.”

Always have each other’s back.

Never let each other down.

Pete and Patrick- the two of them against the world. Held each other together when the fractures were starting to show.

The two of them. Forever.

_i miss missing you now and then_


End file.
